Nike
 
 
 
 
Crisis Management and Communication Plan 
 
 
 
 
 
Last Updated 6/17/22
 
 
Table of Contents

Purpose (Wk 2)

Escalation Framework/Levels (Wk 3)

Incident Response Team (Wk 4)

Roles and Responsibilities/Guidelines (Wk 4)

Crisis Management Process Phases 1-5 (Wk 5)

Do's and Don'ts/Common Questions (Wk 5 & 6)

Maintaining an Effective Plan (Wk 5)

Communication Channels/Sample Writing (Wk 7)

Post Crisis Evaluation Template (Wk 8)

Purpose of Building a Crisis Management Plan:
 The purpose of this document is to determine the goal of a potential crisis plan.
Furthermore, it should also have a clear crisis management plan in place in case a crisis
may occur. This document should be referenced in the case that a crisis occurs and action
is needed. The information and references outlined below will include potential crises
that may occur, and strategies that will be used in case action is needed.
Level  Description Action
Person/Team #1: Legal
 Act on any potential
lawsuits that may occur
This level of a crisis affects the company’s ability
due to a product causing
to function.
violence to a customer
  
 An example of this crisis would be if a
product from Nike physically harmed an
Person/Team #2: PR & CM team
individual after purchasing it.
 Control any negative
Level 1   An example of this crisis would be if an
press that may happen
employee of Nike was acting criminally.
due to the crisis that has
 An example of this crisis would be if Nike’s
occurred
system got hacked and the company lost
control of what was available to the public
under their brand name. Person/Team #3: Executive
  
 Act as the spokesperson
to address the crisis
publicly
Level 2  This level of a crisis is a potential risk on business Person/Team #1: PR & CM
operations and the brand’s image. Team 
    Use potential crisis
 An example of this crisis would be the communication plan to
potential of a Nike product malfunction and address and strategically
a customer does not want to purchase from handle the potential risks
the company anymore.
 An example of this crisis would be the
potential of Nike not having a good brand Person/Team #2: Customer
image or keeping up with a good image. Marketing 
Therefore, it could make the customers stop  Address and control any
purchasing products because they do not bad customer reviews or
like the image of the brand. feedback and if needed,
 An example of this crisis would be the act to fix these negative
potential of Nike collaborating, partnering, occurrences
or being sponsored by a negatively
associated figure. This would have the
potential of customers not wanting to Person/Team #3: Social Media
purchase products because they are Team 
choosing to work with poorly associated  Use social media
 responses to address the
people. issues and actions taken
with this crisis
Person/Team #1: Executive
 Gather all employees
needed and make sure
This level of a crisis is unlikely to be a long-term everyone is on the same
risk for the company. When addressing this crisis, page to handle crisis and
the team should still be on the same page. make sure it won’t
   become a long-term risk
 An example of this crisis would be if a  
higher up decided to take a leave of absence
from Nike. This is not a major, long term Person/Team #2: Executive
risk; however, it could raise a small crisis at Assistant  
the time.  Make sure everyone
 An example of this crisis would be if a Nike handling the crisis is on
Level 3 
customer received a broken item in the mail the same page and
but then they were compensated with a new oversee all actions
one as soon as possible, which did not result
in a long-term risk.
 An example of this crisis would be if a Person/Team #3: PR & CM
rumor occurred about Nike and it was Team 
spreading on social media. However, this  Handle efforts to
wouldn’t be a long-term risk because it prevent this from
could be addressed and the rumors would be becoming a long-term
shut down. risk and create/review
possible crisis plan for
unlikely long-term risks
just in case
Level 4  This level of a crisis is the average issue most Person/Team #1: PR & CM
  businesses have. These are everyday issues that can Team  
be handled.  Have the strategies to
   handle these common
 An example of this issue would be someone issues and act to fix it as
talking negatively about Nike on social soon as possible. Since
media. This could easily be handled by this type of crisis is more
responding back, but it stills needs strategy common, this team will
behind the correct response. be able to act quickly and
 An example of this issue would be a power efficiently
outage that messes up the day to day actions
of Nike’s company. Furthermore, the work
that needs to get done is pushed back. This Person/Team #2: Customer
could easily be addressed but it does need Marketing
strategy to address it correctly.  Act on customer
 An example of this issue would be a feedback quickly and
negative customer review about a product efficiently. Since this
 type of crisis is more
common, customer
responses will be
something that happens
frequently, and this team
will have a lot of
on Nike’s website. This could easily be
experience handling it
handled by responding back or
compensating for what may have went
Person/Team #3: Social Media
wrong.
Team 
 
 Address any issues on
social media if needed or
communicate to another
team any concerning
feedback on platforms
 

Incident Response Team

 The purpose of this team is to be able to designate key people who need to be hands on
when dealing with a crisis; furthermore, specific people chosen for certain types of crises.
This team was assembled because they are the key figures who have the knowledge and
resources to be able to deal a specific level of crisis. The team is responsible for realizing
the issue at hand, determining what to do about it, and acting to control the crisis.

First Line of Defense 

 Person/Team #1 – John Donahue, President & CEO

 Person/Team #2 – Andy Campion, Chief Operating Officer
 Person/Team #3 – Matthew Friend: EVP & Chief Financial Officer
 Person/Team #4 – Ann Miller: EVP & General Counsel
 Person/Team #5 - Monique Matheson: EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer
 Person/Team #6 - Andy Campion: Chief Operating Officer
 Person/Team #7 – Board of Directors
 Person/Team #8 - Corporate Governance
 Ann Miller: VP, Corporate Secretary and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer
 Chris Abston: VP, Corporate Controller
 Group Email/Communication Method – No current method but should have an
executive crisis team email group and a communication crisis team email group in order
to communicate within the correct channels, and for the correct crisis

Greater Response Team 

    Communications – Level 1, 2, 3, 4
 Nigel Powell, EVP & Chief Communications Officer
 John Donahoe: President & CEO
 Customer Support – Level 1 & 4
 Melanie Harris: VP, Strategy & Development
 Legal  - Level 1 & 2
 Ann Miller: EVP & General Counsel
 Partner Communications - Level 1
 Matthew Friend: EVP & Chief Financial Officer
 John Slusher: EVP, Global Sports Marketing
 Social Media  - Level 1, 2 & 4
 Melanie Harris: VP, Strategy & Development
 Customer Marketing - Level 1, 2 & 3
 Heidi O'Neill: President, Consumer and Marketplace
 Dirk-Jan “DJ” Van Hameren: Chief Marketing Officer
 Melanie Harris: VP, Strategy & Development
 John Slusher: EVP, Global Sports Marketing
 G. Scott Uzzell: President & CEO, Converse, Inc.
 People Ops and HR - Level 1
 Monique Matheson: EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer
 Product/Engineering - Level 1, 2 & 3
 John Donahoe: President & CEO
 Mark Parker, Executive Chairman
 Andy Campion, Chief Operating Officer
 Thomas Clarke: President, Innovation
 Matthew Friend: EVP & Chief Financial Officer
 Heidi O'Neill: President, Consumer and Marketplace
 Michael Spillane: President, Consumer Creation
 Craig Williams: President, Jordan Brand
 Executives - Level 1, 2 & 3
 Philip H. Knight: Chairman Emeritus
 Mark Parker, Executive Chairman
 John Donahoe: President & CEO
 Security - Level 1
 Ann Miller: EVP & General Counsel

Roles and Responsibilities 

Team  Contact Name  Roles and Responsibilities 

- Gather crisis communications team to discuss crisis at hand
Communications  Nigel Powell - Decide what type of action will be taken to address this crisis
and move forward with those actions
 - Oversee all actions communications team is working on to
resolve crisis

- Help answer questions and concerns on products and orders,

NRC, NTC, etc.
Customer Support  Melanie Harris

- Handle any legal matters at hand or any that may be potential

Legal  Ann Miller
- Drive engagement on all social media platforms
- Strategy planning for social media growth and
engagement/interaction
Social Media/Marketing  Melanie Harris
- Oversee all feedback on platforms to determine if crisis is
possible
- Oversee and drive HR strategy
- Drive business growth and transformation
Monique - Hire/pay employees
HR  - Control possible HR issues
Matheson

- Come up with innovative concepts for product design

- Apply engineering knowledge and innovative concepts into
Product/Engineering  Mark Parker  
consumer product marketing
- Responsible for design and merchandising for products
Consumer Creation Michael Spillane - Develop strategy for design, creation and merchandising

Guidelines 
 Information should be shared carefully and effectively. Information shared should not be
exposing someone’s personal information. If any information needs to be addressed to
the public, it should be informative yet concealed. Putting the right amount of
information out about a crisis to the public is needed because the public deserves to be
aware. However, oversharing specific information can be bad in crisis matters. Therefore,
there will be a sharing information guidelines PDF that all members of the crisis
communication team will be able to access. This will entail specifics such as, if
information is outing an individual we will not share that to the public. However, if this
information can be generalized and informative to the public without oversharing
personal details, then this can be made aware to the public. Furthermore, an extended list
of the do’s and don’ts of sharing information can be used as a reference for employees.
Overall, important information the public deserves to know about the brand should be
released very strategically.

Crisis Management Process

Phase 1: ALERT  
 - The alert system for Nike should be an executive crisis team email group and a
communication crisis team email group. This will make sure that those notified will be
the correct people depending on the crisis, and messaging will be instantaneous.

Phase 2: ASSESS  
- The Greater Response Team will assess the crisis by meeting together and discussing
how, why, when, what, and where the crisis happened. Furthermore, how this crisis
impacted the company and all people involved. The meeting will also discuss how this
can hurt the company as a whole and what should be done to fix this. Also, the meeting
will break down tasks for each department/team and then strategies will be acted upon to
help resolve the crisis.
 
Phase 3: ACTIVATE

Action Items  Responsible Party 

- Incident response team communications
Communications
- Refer to crisis communication plan
- Initial external messaging
Social Media
- Gather/monitor feedback on platforms discussing crisis
- Check-In Meeting
Executives
- Oversee communication actions of all departments
- Gather/monitor feedback from customers
Customer Support
- Prepare to answer any questions and concerns from customers
- Communicate any legal matters or actions to the rest of the team Legal

  
Phase 4: ADMINISTER  

Responsible
Action Items 
Party 
- Refer to crisis plan based off of what crisis level of crisis is occurring
- Communicate to stakeholders, employees and customers updates of the Communications
crisis
- Communicate to stakeholders, employees and customers updates of the
crisis via social media platforms Social Media
- Moderate and respond to social media feedback
- Conduct meetings throughout crisis for all teams to update each other
- Evaluate actions of all teams when dealing with crisis Executives
- Make any statements or communication methods to the media
- Assist consumers in questions and concerns
Customer Support
- Monitor customer feedback
- Provide legal assistance throughout crisis Legal

  
Part 5: ADJOURN  

Responsible
Action Items 
Party 
- Update crisis communication plan after evaluating strategies used
- Document crisis process, and pros and cons throughout crisis to evaluate Communications
and use as possible reference in the future
- Monitor social media post crisis and address any remarks regarding the
crisis
Social Media
- Determine what social media messaging was most effective/least
effective
- Gather all teams post crisis to evaluate strategies used during crisis and
Executives
catch up on all matters post crisis
- Continue to monitor customer feedback and address any lingering crisis
Customer Support
matters
- Make sure all legal matters are concluded involving crisis Legal

Do’s and Don’ts 

DO’S  DON’TS 
✅ Communicate quickly and efficiently  🚫 Do not wait for audience to make remarks about
   crisis 
✅ Refer to well thought out crisis   
communication plan in order to act on crisis  🚫 Do not impulsively act to fix crisis without
   discussion
✅ Use communication methods with   
internal/external employees  🚫 Do not forget to communicate information about
   crisis to all individuals involved in fixing crisis
✅ Make sure all teams/individuals involved in   
crisis are aware of all information and share the 🚫 Do not forget about your audience who are waiting
same knowledge of crisis to hear what is going on with the crisis  
     
✅ Continuously communicate to audience in 🚫 Do not forget to take note about crisis and all steps
order to update throughout crisis  taken throughout, when the crisis is finally done
  

  
Destination for Common Questions 
 There should be common questions of Nike’s crisis communication plan housed
internally not externally. This should be put in an employee handbook so all employees
are aware and will have access to it. Furthermore, those who are not heavily involved in
the crisis plan, who do not know the answers to specific crisis problems/questions, will
have quick answers of what to do or who to contact at any point of a crisis.

Maintaining an Effective Response Plan 

  Yearly Calendar
o January – revise/edit crisis communication plan
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, executives
o February - training program for employees involved in crisis team
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, HR
o March - mock crisis room
 Department: communications team, legal, executives
o April - revise/edit crisis communication plan
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, executives
o May – plan mock crisis’s, and training programs
 Department: communications team, legal, executives, social media, HR
o June - mock crisis room
 Department: communications team, legal, executives
o July - revise/edit crisis communication plan
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, executives
o August - training program for employees involved in crisis team
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, HR
o September - mock crisis room
 Department: communications team, legal, executives
o October - revise/edit crisis communication plan
 Department: communications team, social media, legal, executives
o November - plan mock crisis’s, and training programs
 Department: communications team, legal, executives, social media, HR
o December - mock crisis room
 Department: communications team, legal, executives

Communication Channels 
  
External 
1. Customer Emails
2. Website
3. Instagram
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
 
Internal 
1. Employee emails
a. To all employees and specific email groups for different team issues
2. Company meetings

Press Release #1
General Mishap, Accident, or Mistake by the Company 
Nike owes our customers a sincere apology. On June 15th, our newest sneaker launch was
not up to par with the results we had expected. As a result, many of our customers were
reviewing the sneakers saying that they were uncomfortable, worn out immediately and already
falling apart. We are truly sorry for what has happened. Nike is taking full responsibility for our
actions and how they have impacted our loyal customers. After we have taken much
consideration, we have found the cause to be a mishap of the production at our factory. We are
dedicated to providing our customers with the best high performing quality, and that they will
never have to experience this with any of Nike’s products again. We will be carefully redoing the
production of this sneaker release and having company executives watching the process at our
factory. Our company employees have been communicating with our customers and are
refunding the payment to all who have purchased this product. Again, we truly apologize to
those our product has not met expectations with, we will continue to take careful consideration to
do better in the future.

Press Release #2
Lawsuits - General   
Right now, Nike cannot make any comments on the ongoing litigation. However, we are
committed to handling this situation with our company employees and we will provide our
consumers with any information we can in the near future. We wanted to remain open and honest
with our customers and let you all know that matters are being handled. Furthermore, whatever
information we can provide our customers with, will receive that information. Thank you for
being patient with us and being a loyal customer of Nike.

Press Release #3
Accusations - Employee or Hiring Discrimination 
At Nike, we take diversity and inclusion very seriously and we are aware of the extreme
importance it holds. We are an equal opportunity employer and we take consideration into all of
our applicants and we thoroughly respect all of our company’s employees. We do not
discriminate towards any race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry,
physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Our mission at
Nike is to guarantee that we constantly provide our employees and future applicants with a safe
and inclusive environment and workplace. Our team is currently carefully reviewing this claim
against us and we are working to figure out the correct steps to take next, thank you.

Assessment Template     
 Will be available via Google Forms link that will be sent in an email to employees
 Ratings scale 1-10 (1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest score)
First Follow Next
  
Response  Up  Steps   
Response:
Did we respond quickly and efficiently, while providing the right         
information to employees, stakeholders, and customers? 
Reveal:
Did we address the situation properly and through the correct         
communication channels?
Authentic:
Did we respond with the correct tone, taking into consideration all those         
impacted by the crisis? 
Truthful:
When finding out about the crisis, did we clearly explain the who, what,
        
when, where, why and how, while also keeping the audience up to date with
each step taken throughout the process?
Modest:
        
If applicable, did we as a company own up to our fault of this crisis? 
Please provide any other feedback that may be necessary: